Girl Overboard Read online

  Another surge of music follows Darth’s words: “Like his grandfather before him who helped build America’s transcontinental railroad a hundred and fifty years ago, Ethan created Europe’s first transcontinental telecommunications superhighway.”

  A small growl gets my attention. Grace’s dog is, as usual, perched on his lap of honor, only now he’s trying to wriggle out from under her heavy hand.

  “Hey, Mochi,” I whisper.

  The dog barks, sharp and high.

  “It’s okay, Mr. Mochi,” coos Grace, soothing her little yippy dog with gentle strokes while glowering at me accusingly. I swear, that glorified rat gets more attention than a baby. While the movie credits roll, Wayne stands up in the still-darkened room, Grace following suit. She murmurs to Mochi, “Come on, sweetie, we’ve got a speech to make.”

  On the dais, Wayne and Grace give off the same unmistakable vibe of success that Baba does. The Cheng power gene obviously skipped over me, or, more likely, ran out because so much success got concentrated in my half-siblings. Wayne is Mr. I-Graduated-Cum-Laude-from-Princeton. You can’t pick up a newspaper without reading about some new deal his venture capital company in San Francisco is brokering in Asia. And Grace’s hop, skip, and a jump from Princeton landed her in New York, where she found out she could brag and get paid for it. So now she’s the head of her own public relations agency.

  Naturally, Wayne takes the microphone first, establishing himself as The Eldest Son, a chip off the gold block. “It’s hard to believe that my father is seventy tonight, when he’s got the energy of a man half his age. I’m sure all of you know what I’m talking about. His midnight phone calls. Three a.m. e-mails. And multi-tasking abilities.” Wayne waits a beat for the next photograph, this one of Baba sitting on an exercise ball in his office, instead of a chair. “The Ethan Cheng Way: why not work and work out at the same time?”

  The businesspeople laugh appreciatively. I sweat profusely. I can’t remember a single word of my toast. Call me the ultimate case study for the should have, would have, could have chapter in Baba’s best-selling book, The Ethan Cheng Way: From Rags to Richest. I should have practiced my toast more. I would have if I hadn’t been dueling this dress. I could have been more prepared if I were a Cheng cookie cutter kid. But I’m not.

  Brevity is not Wayne’s problem. His history lecture takes us back to the sixties, when Baba did research for Bell Labs, then moved to Hong Kong against the advice of his colleagues—“No one’s going to want to use a mobile phone”—to start his own wireless company. “Naturally, my mom’s family bankrolled that endeavor,” Wayne says, shooting a look at my mom, the beneficiary of that endeavor. “We should all be so lucky to look and act half his age. I suppose we all could if we had a beautiful Betty at our side, too.”

  On the face of it, Wayne’s comment sounds innocent enough, but when he says, “Mei-Mei”—little sister—and hands the microphone to Grace, I see the look they exchange. The one that says, Oooh, nice dig.

  Grace’s speech is all “we” this and “we” that, making it clear with laughing glances at Wayne that the “we” she’s talking about is her and her big brother. “We” were the original beta testers for The Ethan Cheng Way. “We” were forced to be nothing less than excellent. “We” are such wonderful, accomplished, envy-worthy offspring.

  I don’t know about the rest of the crowd, but I’m feeling a wee bit exhausted. Once upon a time, I thought being the offspring of Ethan Cheng guaranteed my place in paradise, too. Who knew that when I rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange five years ago to start the trading of DiaComm, my life would change so much I’d give anything for a redo?

  I’m not proud of it, but at first I gorged on everybody’s attention: “Who wants to see my new house, new yacht, new plane?” Age was the only friend from the pre-Initial Public Offering days who had the nerve to tell me I was bragging.

  I should have listened.

  My perfect starshine luster lasted three months. After Christmas break, everyone in fifth grade was comparing and contrasting their holiday haul, and I blurted out about my gift, a recording studio—just what every girl of ten wants, right? That’s when I overheard the derisive laughter and saw Age’s pitying told-you-so gaze and belatedly understood his warnings: my classmates didn’t like me; they liked my parents’ toys. So when Mama transferred me to Viewridge Prep, the best private school in Seattle, I vanished happily, not knowing that however much old and new money surrounded me, Age would be the one person who accepted me, no matter which side of the decimal point I was on.

  Too soon, the audience applauds, and Baba nods approvingly at the Original Cheng Children. I stay seated until Mama’s meaningful look pierces me from across the table: Don’t shame me.

  On my approach to the dais, I realize that—oh, God—the crowd of two hundred people might as well have supersized into an audience of two thousand. Even though I want to cry now, even though my cheeks ache from grinning at these people, most of whom I don’t know, I smile like a good daughter, a good hostess, a good sport. After all, in my family, “face” is everything—how people perceive you, how you act in public. Who would have known that “saving face” would mean sacrificing the girl behind it?

  Back at our table, the way Grace rolls her eyes at Wayne, she might as well gloat out loud, And she calls herself a Cheng? I knew Syrah couldn’t do it.

  All around the tang, gazes drop faster than stock prices on a bad-news day. I clear my throat, the sound amplifying horribly in the hall, and spot a familiar army green jacket outside the far window. A red beanie waves at me from above everyone’s heads. Age.

  Just like that, I remember how Age, my toasting muse, quoted Baba to me the other day. With more fervor than any true Ethan Cheng devotee, I cite that quote now: “As my dad wrote, ‘You cannot fail if you have good people at your side.’ There’s nothing more important in this world than friends. True friends.” As Mama makes her way up the stage to me, I look around the hall in my best confident Cheng impression. “Thanks to all of you, the good people at my father’s side.”

  Applause echoes in the tang. Who cares if people are clapping because I’ve finally said something, or if they agree with what I’ve said? Next to me, Mama snakes her arm around my waist, and I notice that Wayne and Grace are smiling, too, like we’re one big happy Cheng clan. Holding two champagne glasses, Baba takes the stairs nimbly to the stage.

  “Thank you, everyone,” Baba says. “As you may know, the Lunar New Year is the most important holiday in the Chinese year. Families unite to give thanks together. So Syrah is on the right track, but you’re more than friends. You’re family.” Baba contemplates his champagne glass. “The Year of the Dog is supposed to be one of frivolity and leisure, which is how I’m going to be enjoying my retirement.” He grins at the stunned crowd. “Happy New Year!”

  Just like Wayne and Grace, and everyone else at this party, I gape at Baba. The only person who doesn’t look shocked is Mama. When Baba drops one arm around Mama’s shoulders and the other around mine, cold resentment settles on Wayne’s and Grace’s faces. Even as they lift their champagne flutes along with everyone else in the hall, I can feel the anger behind their stiff smiles as they stare at me and Mama, the two interlopers in their family. I could be three or ten or thirteen again, knowing then as I do now that I’ll never be able to break into their inner circle.

  Age, standing in front of the window, gives me the thumbs-up sign. He inclines his head toward the garden before disappearing. Like I always do, I push away the hurt (The Ethan Cheng Way: focus on what you can change; change your focus from what you cannot). My inner circle is waiting outside.

  4

  Bill!” says Baba, clasping the hand of the one CEO whose face is in the news more than his own. This only goes to show that while Baba may consider everyone here tonight family, some relatives are more important than others.

  While Mama works the crowd at another table, slimy Dr. Martin oozes over to ours, resting
one hand on Grace’s bare shoulder instead of mine. “Grace, Wayne,” he says.

  I take that reprieve as a sign to make my second break for freedom of the evening.

  Once outside, I breathe in the cold, fresh air, and hurry along the garden path to my art studio, where Age and I usually hang out. My heel catches on one of the inlaid pebbles in the path. That awful boneless sensation of falling, the same toppling, out-of-control feeling that ended with me blowing out my knee, pulls me to the ground in an all-too-familiar way until Age darts out of the thick shadows to catch me.

  I stifle a scream. “Geez, Age! I swear, you must have been a ninja in one of your lives.”

  “Call me Zorro-guchi, the only Mexican ninja in the world.” Letting go of my arms, Age strikes a kung fu pose in front of the old pine tree and a small grove of bamboos.

  If my mom were here, she’d scan Age from his perpetually mussed dark brown hair (“That’s what a twelve-dollar haircut does for you”) to his chipped front tooth (“You really ought to consider cosmetic dentistry”) and his oversized army green snowboarding jacket (“That better not be how Syrah dressed when she used to snowboard”).

  But Mama’s not here. I grin at my savior in jeans so indigo blue they’re black and say, “You made it.”

  “You think I’d let you enjoy all this fun by yourself?”

  I make a face before glancing cautiously over my shoulder in case an overeager event planner is stalking me again.

  “That good?” Age asks, grinning.

  “That bad. You missed tonight’s entertainment. Me.”

  As I give him the gory details of my toast, we make our way down a covered zigzagging corridor and through a courtyard. “So, Zorrito, how was Alpental?”

  “Pretty good,” Age says, kicking a pinecone off the path. “I landed a backside seven.”

  I’m not sure what shocks me more: that Age, who’s normally so laid back about his feats on snow, is telling me this, or that he nailed a double rotation trick when pre-Accident, neither of us could even throw down a backside five. A light wind blows through the trees. I pick up the pace, worrying about how far I’ve fallen behind Age in snowboarding.

  “That’s so great, Age.”

  “Yeah, you should’ve been there.” Age’s eyes dip toward my knee. “You sure your surgeon said you were up for snowboarding?”

  I can almost ignore the throb in my knee as we cross a humpbacked bridge. Ignoring my own doubt is harder because the thought of launching myself off a twenty-foot cliff into air with nothing but a board under my feet makes me equal parts eager and nauseous.

  But a good Cheng never admits fear. “Yeah, Dr. Bradford told me”—I deepen my voice—“ ‘Go snowboard, young woman.’ ”

  Age doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even laugh.

  Silence laden with hidden meaning stretches between us; only I know how to decipher it. Age can see straight through to my self-doubt. “So when are you going to ride?” Age notices me shivering and shrugs out of his jacket. “Here.”

  “No, I’m fine,” I protest, but Age looks at me like I’m an idiot and spreads his hands out so there’s no missing the fleece pullover he’s wearing.

  “Thanks,” I tell him, and take his jacket. “Actually, I was feeling a tad naked.”

  That’s when I notice that Age is looking at me as if he’s never seen so much of me before. Can I blame him? Frankly, I haven’t seen so much of myself in public before either. I nestle into his cocoon of a coat, wishing that I were hiding in my usual jeans and T-shirt. Or better yet, in my own oversized, androgynous snowboarding pants.

  “That bad?” I ask.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  But the way Age says it, like I look that ba-aad, makes me echo: oh, yeah.

  Geez, where did that thought come from? Probably from the same brain-dead part of me that fell for Jared Johanson at my summer snowboarding camp. I duck my head so Age doesn’t catch me blushing and keep walking through the doorway that leads into a pavilion overlooking the pond.

  I breathe in deeply, wishing my ever-alert symbolism-detector had warned me that Jared was a wolf in snowboarder’s clothing. To be talk-show truthful, all the signs were there. I just didn’t want to admit to myself that Jared only wanted me to introduce him to my bank account. I mean, like my roommates at camp gloated when they thought I was asleep, “Guess being loaded can make anyone look good.”

  A thousand firecrackers stitched together on a celebration string pop loudly, just the way they have for hundreds of years to scare off bad luck. You’re seven months too late, boys. My knee twinges in agreement.

  “What’s going on?” asks Age.

  At first, I meet his eyes and then drop my gaze, knowing that for the last couple of weeks he’s known that I felt close to teetering off Gold Mountain, wondering wildly now if Age is finally asking me about Jared. But how would he know about him? Age couldn’t afford the snowboard camp, let alone the back-to-back-to-back sessions I attended, and I’ve never talked about how Jared dumped me. Not with anyone. A ball of red streaks across the sky before exploding, and I deliberately misread Age’s question.

  “Phase Three in Mama’s plans,” I say. “A little fireworks action between the shark fin soup and the oysters.”

  “I meant—”

  Luckily, that’s when Meghan and her ever-present walkie-talkie head our way. She’s my perfect excuse, one that I grab as if it were a leash, not letting it get away.

  “Come on,” I urge Age, as scarlet and gold sparkles dive into Lake Washington. He takes my hand and we run down the path, me on the balls of my feet so that my spiked heels don’t hook any stray pebbles.

  A cheer rises from the great courtyard outside the tang where the guests are now gathered to watch the fireworks. Another whiz of green bursts overhead, as Age and I cross under the round moon gate, that symbol of ever-lasting happiness. I cast another glance over my shoulder, but don’t see Meghan anymore. She must have been paged on a more important mission than tracking down a runaway daughter.

  “Up here,” I tell Age, veering to the side of the building.

  “Where?” While he’s barely breathing hard, my forehead is beaded with sweat. I assure myself, it’s not because I’m out of shape; I’m just anxious about making a speedy getaway.

  “Here,” I say, stopping in front of the steps outside of the pavilion, hewn right into the stone, that lead up to the moon-viewing terrace on the roof.

  “You kept this from me,” says Age.

  He has no idea what else I’ve kept from him. I simply shrug and say, “A girl has to have her secrets. Maintains our air of mystery and all that.” Maintains our sanity and all that.

  As if he heard my thoughts, Age asks, “What’s going on with you?”

  “Gentlemen first.”

  “You first. Move it.”

  I know he wants me in front of him in case I fall. Anyway, my protests die when my heel scrapes along the uneven rockery of the first step.

  On the roof, Age and I can see straight down to the barge on the lake where the master pyrotechnician flown in from China moves gracefully, like one of the black-robed Bunraku puppeteers who once performed in my house for some charity fundraiser. The fireworks guru leans to his right, and suddenly, there’s a sharp crack. A flash of orange squiggles into the overcast night before it fans out and showers droplets of gold.

  Age is focused on the sky as if that’s where he wants to be, carving in and out of the sparkles, these phantom moguls. Moguls that I need to be able to skim over and call fun again.

  Without taking his eyes off the fireworks, Age leans closer to me, resting his hands on the wood railing, and quotes, “ ‘The only people for me are the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles.…’ ”

  “Who’s that from?”

  “Jack Kerouac. He’s my man.”

  What I want to ask Age is, What happens when the only person for you burns out? And just like that,
the sky goes blank with blackness, mirroring what I’m thinking, how I’m feeling. Blank is the way I feel when I think about snowboarding and flying off uncharted cliffs. The way I feel when I think about a future without snowboarding. The way I feel when I think about the articles parsing my “incident” in all the snowboarding magazines. A rocket blazes a shrieking path, reaching higher than any of the other fireworks before it explodes, burning a hole into the night just as Jared did through my head and heart.

  The fastest way out of dwelling on Jared is dwelling on anything else. So I tell Age, “My parents probably won’t let me ride, no matter what Dr. Bradford says.” The loud blast of fireworks can’t drown out the sigh of relief in my head; I can keep blaming my parents for stopping me from facing the slopes.

  Even if Age doesn’t hear my words, he knows what I’m saying because he turns to me, his dark eyes missing nothing. Not even my rationalizations. He bumps my shoulder with his.

  “God, this is so stupid.” Looking away, I wish Age didn’t see me tearing up, because I’m scared to ride and more scared not to. “I mean, I’m not good enough to go pro anyway.”

  “No, you’re not good enough. You’re great. What did that one rep say? ‘You’ve got potential.’ ”

  “You’re the one with potential. You just won’t compete.”

  “Could you take a compliment for once? Look, it’s not like your parents will ever know if you snowboard.”

  I shrug, knowing he’s right. They’re barely home enough to remember what I look like.

  “And Bao-mu’s not exactly going to follow you onto the mountain,” he says with a grin.

  I laugh, imagining my nanny, who’s even older than Baba, picking her way through hip-deep snow. But Age has a point; Bao-mu has never spied on me the way my parents think she does, keeping tabs on all my minutes when they’re away. So unless I want them to know, my parents won’t have a clue if I blow off school to ride or not. If I slack off on my graduation requirements—say, those thirty hours of community service I’m supposed to have done by now or not. If I fall in love with the wrong guy or not.